Max is transgender. The 26-year-old was born a female but identifies as a man. That was a tough experience in Evansville: looking like a girl, everyone treating you like one, but not feeling at home in your skin. Classmates made fun of him. He withdrew. He and his parents fought. Now they don't talk.

Making it to his mid-20s feels like a victory to him now, as does knowing that he has friends who support him, friends who are straight and gay and transgender. He had just gotten to a point of feeling accepted when the Indiana state legislature passed the Religious Freedom Act.

"This law makes me feel like I'm being bullied all over again," he said. "If I go into a restaurant and the owner doesn't like me because I'm transgender, because their religion has told them that I'm bad, does that give them the right to refuse to serve me?

Proponents of the law, including Gov. Mike Pence, say that's not what the law will do. He has said it's intended to prevent the government from forcing anyone to do something that opposes their religious beliefs.

Some businesses and Indianans are behind him. Nationally influential Christian evangelist Franklin Graham, who lives in North Carolina, tweeted this week, "Thank God for politicians like @GovPenceIN who are not afraid to take a stand regardless of political consequences."

But there is a tidal wave of opposition throughout the state and across the country. Critics say the law is a thinly veiled mechanism to legally sanction discrimination. Protests have raged throughout the state and elsewhere. Some religious leaders oppose it.

Civic groups, corporations and state governments, such as Washington state and Connecticut, are vowing not to to do business with Indiana. The Indiana Chamber of Commerce has blasted the law. So has the N.C.A.A. Its college basketball tournament is hosting the Final Four in Indianapolis this weekend.

Some businesses in the state are reacting by placing signs in windows that read, "We serve everyone."

Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard, a vocal opponent of the law, demanded: "Fix this law. ... Do so immediately."

He and others contend that because Indiana, unlike other states, has no statewide law protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination, this religious freedom law is a license to discriminate.

Hundreds of protesters joined Max in a demonstration on the streets of Evansville Monday. Some said they would consider leaving the state because the law makes them feel unwelcome.

Lee Flowers, 27, organized a rally in Evansville to protest the law.

He grew up in Indiana, but now he's afraid to go into businesses with his boyfriend.

"This is very personal," he said. "It hurts me. It really does. This is shameful for Indiana. Is anyone infringing on someone's religion? No. This is about giving people the legal defense to refuse business to someone they don't like based on sexual orientation."

'We've been called homophobic'

Casey Samson of Samson Family Leather in Lebanon told CNN that he read the law, which runs four pages. He feels that the law merely protects his right to refuse to sell to a customer whose beliefs he thinks offend his Catholic faith.

That doesn't include gay customers, he insists.

"We have no issues serving a same sex couple at all," he said. "The law is strictly protecting people from the government to forcefully make them do something against their will."

CNN asked him to give an example of what might offend him, and cause him to refuse to sell to someone.

"Anything that promotes hate or a derogatory statement that someone believes is OK," he answered. "I don't want to take my personal time making a product that spews hate into the world."

That's never happened in Samson Family Leather's 35-year history, he said, but it could and that's why he thinks the law is needed.

The owner has shared his opinion with local media, and that has sparked a fierce backlash from many in the community, he said.

"We've been called homophobic and hypocrites," he said. "We've also experienced a very large amount of support.
"Our phones have not stopped ringing from people all over the state and country. We've gotten e-mails saying 'I appreciate you standing up. Thank you for standing up for our rights.' "

"As someone who walks in my religious freedom all the time, I'm glad I have something to protect me," he said. "I don't see the law as discriminatory. I just see it protecting people from any type of business or anyone trying to infringe on their religious rights."

Woods blamed Pence's office for its "inability to educate" people about what the law says. There should have been public meetings about it, Woods said.

The Indianapolis Star reported that the ceremony where Pence signed the bill into law on Thursday was "deliberately low-key and private" and closed to media. The governor's staff office, it said, refused to provide names of people who surrounded Pence as he signed.

The question about discrimination

To Samson, the law doesn't explicitly use the word discrimination and that, to him, means it won't lead to discrimination.

The law states that the government can't "substantially burden a person's exercise of religion" and that individuals who feel like their religious beliefs have been or could be "substantially burdened" can lean on this law to fend off lawsuits.

An often used example: A florist who doesn't want to sell flowers to a gay couple or a baker who doesn't want to make their wedding cake. Those are arguably businesses that can choose which client to hire and which to reject, proponents of the law say.

CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said it's likely that a refusal to serve a gay person wouldn't stand under the law, but a refusal to provide a service for a gay wedding would.

"Indiana isn't the first state to establish this law," Samson said. "It's nothing new for the U.S. and the state of Indiana."

Samson is right that Indiana isn't the first state to adopt a religious freedom law, but the situation in Indiana is a little more complicated than that.

Indiana is the 20th state to adopt a "religious freedom restoration" law.

For instance, bills in Arizona, Georgia and Ohio with similar wording were proposed. The effort in Arizona failed in 2014. Georgia's bill has not been voted on and the legislative session ends Thursday. The Ohio bill stalled in 2014.

A similar bill is proposed in Arkansas. In Little Rock Monday night, protesters demonstrated against a bill called the Conscious Protection Act. As the bill's creator, Republican Rep. Bob Ballinger left a meeting Monday, protesters shouted: "Shame on you!"

More than politics

In the past, religious freedom laws were enacted with broad support. Many were passed before the recent movement for gay rights and before the majority of states came to recognize same-sex marriage.

But when it was introduced in December, the bill that became Indian's religious freedom law incited fierce debate among faith leaders, businesses and residents, the Indianapolis Star newspaper reports.

Mark Ivy watched as that debate raged over the holidays and into the new year, hoping that the bill would not pass.

He lives in Farmersburg, Indiana, where about 1,100 people live.

Indiana recognized gay marriage last October. Ivy married his longtime partner in December.

"I understand politics in Indiana. I know it's conservative. I get that this is about politics," he said. "Because I can see it as politics, I'm not mad."

But he also said that he feels the law is "about bigotry, plain and simple."

"It's taking us back decades, removing so much progress toward equality in Indiana," he said.

Ivy worries that the law could not only allow discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

He wonders if it "could conceivably be used for Jewish businesses to refuse service to Muslims and Christians. Hindus could bar Bhuddists. Protestants and Catholics could shun each other," Ivy wrote in a CNN iReport. "Mainline church members could say, 'No' to evangelicals."

On social media, debate over the law showed no signs of letting up.

In response to Christian leader Graham's tweet supporting the law, someone with the username Mary M tweeted,
"amen using his God given right."

Jennifer Watson tweeted them back: "NO: as an elected official, his rights are not God given, they are voter given."

Red Cross focused on getting medical supplies into Yemen

The onslaught on Houthis rebels in Yemen continued Tuesday, with the Saudi-led coalition asserting increasing control while locals fled the chaos and casualties piled up -- dozens of civilians among them.

The U.S. Navy rescued two Saudi Arabian air force pilots from the Gulf of Aden, a U.S. military official said Friday. The pilots had ejected from their F-15 aircraft after experiencing mechanical failure, Saudi officials said.

Five days after their first airstrikes, the coalition has destroyed air defense systems of the Houthis and supporters of Yemen's longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh, and rendered all but a fraction of air bases and stripes unusable, a Saudi source said.

Saudi Arabia's navy now controls all Yemeni ports, allowing only closely watched non-military medical goods to pass its blockade, according to the source.

This effort isn't over, including widespread attempts to locate and destroy Scud missiles still in the country, the source said.

The Saudis appear intent on seeing it through, as evidenced by remarks from Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal in Riyadh.

"The Houthi militia and agents of the former president -- supported by Iran -- insist to meddle in Yemen, reshuffle the cards, rob the Yemeni will, make a coup against the constitutional legitimacy and reject all peaceful solutions," al-Faisal said, according to the state-run Saudi Press Agency.

"We are not warmongers," he added. "But if war's drums are beaten, we are ready for them."

The airstrikes -- the latest focused around Aden, Taiz and coastal cities -- come at a cost, and not just to Houthi rebel fighters.

The International Red Cross said that intense fighting had brought "disturbing reports of civilian casualties," with some of the worst violence around the port city of Aden.

Erich Ogoso, a spokesman with the United Nations' humanitarian agency, reported 182 dead and hundreds more wounded just between last Wednesday and Sunday. Some 75,000 people have been displaced in the past week, many health facilities shut down and food prices have skyrocketed.

"Increasing hostilities have led to (the) targeting of schools, health facilities and other social infrastructure," Ogoso said. "... There are reports of damage to residential areas in different cities, and in Aden, minors have reportedly taken part in the fighting on all sides."

Airstrikes that hit the Al-Mazraq camp for displaced persons near Sanaa killed at least 29 people -- women and children among them, according to aid group Doctors Without Borders. About 1,100 families live in the camp, said U.N.'s humanitarian affairs coordinator for Yemen, Johannes Van Der Klaauw.

"They are," he said, "among the most vulnerable people in Yemen."

Saudis, Iranians at odds

Yemen has been in disarray for some time, beset by widespread poverty and insecurity. Those factors helped terror groups like al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula find homes in the Arab nation, but didn't help its 26 million citizens in their quest for peace and prosperity.

The instability escalated as the Houthis, a minority group long marginalized in Yemen, increasingly challenged the government of President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi (who in 2012 took over for Saleh, who had been in power for 33 years).

The Houthis began moving into Sanaa in September, then headed into Aden earlier this month -- advancing despite intermittent (and, time and again, unsuccessful) talks aimed a peaceful political solution to the unrest.

Things finally came to a head last week, with Hadi -- who claims to still be President, even though the Houthis control government institutions -- left Yemen. At roughly the same time, Saudi Arabia and its allies came in with force to support Hadi, who they say remains Yemen's legitimate leader.

The burgeoning conflict threatened to open a wider rift, not just in the region but in the Muslim world. That's because the Saudis have painted the Houthis as tools of Iran's government, an accusation that also reflects the fact Saudi Arabia (and their allies in the coalition) are predominantly Sunni Muslims, while Iran and the Houthis are Shiites.

The state-run Saudi Press Agency quoted Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs Prince Saud al-Faisal as saying Tuesday that he would not condemn Iran, but would instead test the country's intentions "by extending our hands to it as a Muslim neighbor to open a new page."

If those two countries could achieve real cooperation, it could ease the pressures that are tearing Yemen apart.

On the other side, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said that officials in his country and Saudi Arabia can help bring about a "political solution" in Yemen, according to Iran's state-run Press TV, citing AFP.

If they don't, war could inflame the entire region.

"We strongly object to the military solution in Yemen," Amir-Abdollahian said, reiterating a view made by other Iranian officials. "We believe that the Saudi military attack against Yemen is a strategic mistake."

The Virgin Group CEO said Tuesday that the British company's U.S. operations would move to the heartland city of Branson, Missouri.

Among his many claims: He said Virgin America will start flying to Branson, and that the company plans to build a new luxury resort in the city of 10,000 people.

Branson also said that Virgin Active, the company's health club chain, will offer a new workout program using hay bales and wagon wheels.

He went on to say that his water filtration business, Virgin Pure, will triple-filter the town's water. That way, he said, "I will always be able to enjoy the perfect tasting cup of tea whenever I'm in town."

Branson even name dropped the town's biggest celebrity, Dolly Parton, claiming that Virgin will name its latest plane after the country music icon's 1973 classic "Jolene."

The elaborate hoax appears to have been weeks in the making. Branson said in a blog post dated March 16 that he became interested in the city of Branson after he learned that a long-lost relative founded the town.

Virgin went all out to make the prank seem believable, sending out multiple press releases and producing a video featuring Richard Branson along with the mayor of Branson, Raeanne Presley, who appears to be in on the joke.

Virgin spokespeople played along when contacted by the press, but hinted that the timing of the announcement was not coincidental.

The director of Branson's Airport, Jeffrey Bourk, said Virgin's interest in his town was flattering.

"I have my staff looking into gate availability, but it may be tough given Virgin's aggressive service rollout," Bourk said on Facebook. "In the meantime, we are anxious to see what incentives Virgin America can offer the airport and the community."

Branson has a history of making outrageous announcements around the time of April 1 every year. He has previously said that Virgin would introduce a glass-bottom plane, and that a new company called Virgin Volcanic would send people to the center of an active volcano.

The capital, Ankara, some 250 miles from Istanbul, also was affected. The outage extended to 45 of Turkey's 81 provinces.

The semiofficial Anadolu Agency quoted Energy Minister Taner Yildiz as saying the cause of the outage was unknown. Yildiz, speaking during a visit to Slovakia, said he could neither confirm nor deny that a cyberattack had triggered the blackout, the Anadolu Agency reported.

Flightradar24, which maps real-time flight data on the Internet, tweeted that the outage was "affecting flights," and said 11 of its 16 air traffic monitoring systems receivers -- as distinct from the country's air traffic control system -- were not working.

The Turkish Electricity Transmission Co. blamed the outage on a problem with transmission lines, Anadolu Agency reported. The utility said an investigation was in progress, as were efforts to restore power, the news agency said.

The outage began at 10:36 a.m. (3:36 a.m. ET). Nearly two hours later, according to Anadolu Agency, about 15% of the power had been restored to Istanbul and Ankara, including in some subway stations. Power also was beginning to flow again to a number of provinces that had been cut off, the agency reported.

By midafternoon, Yildiz said, 90% of Istanbul's power had been restored.

"Crowded places such as metro stations have been given electricity, and we believe the rest of the country should be fully powered shortly," he said.

Prosecutor taken hostage

Also Tuesday, a prosecutor in a controversial case was reportedly taken hostage by armed men at a courthouse in Istanbul.

Mehmet Selim Kiraz was assigned to the case of Berkin Elvan, a 15-year-old boy who was injured during the anti-government Gezi Park protests in June 2013.

The teen died the following March after having spent nine months in a coma. The case, with its overtones of possible police overreaction, has been politically contentious, just as the protests themselves were.

The prosecutor was taken hostage around 12:30 p.m. Turkish time in his office on the sixth floor of the Caglayan district courthouse, Anadolu Agency reported.

Police evacuated that floor of the building, the agency reported. Snipers were deployed, it said.

The agency said that two gunshots were heard as officers tried to get into the prosecutor's office, but it is not known whether anyone was hurt.

Negotiations between the gunmen and authorities were reported to have followed.

An explosion, followed by sounds of more gunshots, could be heard coming from the courthouse Tuesday evening, hours after the situation began. Smoke emanated from the building; the consequences of those sounds weren't immediately clear.